Book on golden era of Pashto music published

PESHAWAR: A noted radio anchorperson and expert on music Haji Muhammad Aslam Khan has recently brought out a book on the traditional Pashto music of the days of yore. The new 512-page book titled “Tair Hair Awazoona” (The forgotten voices) contains important information about golden era of Pashto music. 

The author has profiled around 100 top folksingers of the golden era of Pashto when radio was the only source of entertainment. The book on old Pashto music is expected to serve a valid research document on the topic. The collection would be not only of great benefit to young scholars but a precious document for music lovers to know about the contributions of our legendary folksingers.

The book is in fact a compilation of the scripts of a popular radio Peshawar music show that used to air old Pashto songs. According to the author Laiqzada Laiq, the then show producer had said that only a few old spools had been preserved and a full-fledged show could not be planned. However, he agreed later on the request of the author who was supposed to run the planned music show. The music show had gained widespread popularity and attracted audience in large numbers.

“I made a request to the audience on radio during a show that anyone who had any old spool containing old Pashto song should donate it to radio Peshawar, and the response was overwhelming. The music lovers from different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata began pouring in spools, the number from just a few swelled up to 4,000. Soon it became a precious asset of radio Peshawar,” Khan writes. He says that Radio Pakistan should preserve these spools and should transfer them to computer.

The radio anchorperson then started research on collecting complete profiles of all those folksingers for several years. Nawab Ali Khan Yousafzai, a retired producer of radio Peshawar, says that Haji Muhammad Aslam Khan deserves a doctorate degree as he has conducted an invaluable research on old Pashto music.

“It is indeed a great achievement to collect information on top Pashto folksingers whose voices were lost and the young generation was totally unaware of the tremendous contributions of those artistes,” Yousafzai comments.

In addition to old Pashto singers of the past, the book also profiles a few music recording companies including ‘His master voice’, ‘Bungaphone’ and ‘Gulshan’ which had been set up in Kolkata, Lahore and Peshawar.  The book carries rare photographs of some of the most popular singers and instrumentalists of their own times. Also it mentions a few popular Pashto plays, which had been preserved on spools.

ANP leader Iftikhar Hussain while commenting on the quality of the collection writes that Haji Muhammad Aslam Khan had written a very comprehensive book on the old folksingers whose voices were still ringing in ears of audience familiar with that era. “It was on my suggestion that Aslam Khan also anchored the same show on the Pakistan Television (PTV) Peshawar centre. It can serve a crash course for research scholars on Pashto classical period.”